Finding happiness in running and sobriety

Headaches Smeadaches

The last several days I have been waking up with a headache. I thought perhaps all of the sugar was getting to me and started to cut back. Now I’m still waking up with a headache but also getting super tired, full on power headache, and feeling sick after dinner. I’m sure this isn’t related to not drinking but more about something up with my diet and/or exercise. Nothing has been very regular in my life lately.

Which brings me to how much I like order and routine. I’m not crazy OCD, switch the light off and on 20 times before I enter a room, but I do like to have some sort of routine. I believe this to be due to my crazy brain. It is so chaotic up in here that I require everything outside of my head to have order. Could be why I slipped into the drinking routine so easily. Oh, I hadn’t thought of that before!

In the mornings I like to wake up before anyone else and have one or two cups of coffee while I read the internet. I have done this for the last 15 years. Once I’m properly caffeinated I don’t need that much structure to my day. I’m ready for anything.

Pre-sobriety: In the evenings, once I got home from work, I would have a cocktail. Sometimes I managed to get a run in before the cocktails happened if I ran right after work, but towards the end of my drinking the running happened less and less, and the drinking started earlier and earlier. I miss running regularly. I miss my 6 or 7 mile runs. Now I’m lucky to get in 4 miles, and usually it’s closer to 2.

Post-sobriety: I don’t have an evening routine. I haven’t replaced the drinking with anything, so in the evenings I don’t know what to do with myself. There have been times where I am in bed by 7pm which is why I haven’t updated here regularly too. I want to stay up until 10pm like normal adults.

Thinking about an evening routine I’d like to make an effort to create one over the next couple weeks. Here is my first rough draft:

Run (If I haven’t already done this)
Shower
Dinner
TV/read (I’d like to make more time to watch TV for fun. I never do this)
Study (Learning Spanish)
Blog
Meditation
Yoga
Bed

That looks like a lot of stuff for one evening. Maybe it’s a little too ambitious. Well, it’s worth a shot.